The wrists still ache but maybe not as much as before. The other injuries that have plagued Michelle Wie’s golf career have also improved, if not disappeared completely.

And Wie is playing winning golf again, something that at times in recent years seemed like it might not happen.

“There was a lot of doubt always. Especially when you don't remember the last time you haven't felt pain,” Wie said Tuesday as she prepared for her 14th start in the ANA Inspiration at the age of just 28. “It's a hard road. Just having to change my swing so many times, working around my injuries. I thought a couple of them were going to be career-ending.”

Rather than having no career, Wie seems on her way back up LPGA leader boards these days. Earlier this month, Wie earned her fifth LPGA victory at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore, capping the win with a long birdie putt on the final hole followed by several big fist pumps. In her other four starts this year, Wie has two 11th-place finishes and hasn’t been worse than 32nd.

The strong play is from a combination of things, Wie said, but mostly a longer off-season that she termed more productive than the six-week off-season before the 2017 season. There is also a new fitness program with a new trainer.

“(Jessica) Korda and I are basically on the same program. We call it the baby giraffe program. Also they call it the glass house program,” Wie said. “Basically trying to not get injuries and just try to be stronger, but just kind of work within myself.”

Wie first burst onto the national golf scene when, at 13, she played her way into the final pairing of the 2003 ANA Inspiration on Sunday, playing with Annika Sorenstam and eventual winner Patricia Meunier-LeBouc. Her ninth-place finish that year was the first of six-top-10 finishes in the Mission Hills event, including a tie for third and one shot out of a playoff in 2006 and a second-place finish in 2014 in a memorable final-day duel with winner Lexi Thompson.

“I have a lot of great memories for this place. Mission Hills is a truly special place in my heart,” Wie said. “I still remember when I was first playing here, and all the memories that I had from that. So I think I just draw upon that memory every time I come play here. It's a great place. Palm Springs is a great place.”

Even with eight-top 10 finishes in 2017, Wie was struggling at times with the pain from injuries, especially in her wrists.

“When your back is hurting or neck is hurting, you can't really do much,” she said. “It definitely helps to not have your hands hurt when you putt. So definitely being healthy and pain free definitely helps in all aspects of your game, even putting.”

Wie has had wrist issues since hurting herself playing in the Samsung World Championship at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert more than a decade ago when she hit a ball off a cart path.

“I think the correct term, I could be way off, I think I have osteoarthritis in a couple spots in my wrist. So my doctors and I, we've been taking these collagen injections, which is what helps to build the cartilage,” Wie said. “It's a lot for like bone-on-bone for knees, and they started using it for shoulders and now they use it for wrists. So it really helps. It just sucks that it's on both wrists. So kind of have to go in and out of the doctor's office quite often.”

Feeling healthy now and armed with a victory this year and a new swing with a fade rather than a draw helping her game, Wie is ready for the week at Mission Hills, she said. That might include a more aggressive strategy from her 2014 runner-up finish, when she hit mostly irons off the tees at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course.

“From that year, I'll hit a lot more drivers. My caddie and I talk about it a lot,” she said. “I kind of have more of a mentality that if I'm even in the rough, I'd rather be up there and kind of that freer, more play-like-a-kid mindset. A lot of times we just go, like, okay, send it. Why not.”